"Our gas bill started creeping up and then jumped 40 percent year before last," Dean said. "Then it went up last year, and (I) think it is going to go up again this year. My gas bill is like $10,000 a month."

And when he passes on those costs to customers, he sometimes catches heat from them.

Dean's not alone, not by a long shot. High fuel prices are a big issue all over -- the squeeze is on for industries ranging from airlines to trucking companies to chemical makers, not to mention people who just want to gas up their cars.

Prices for crude oil and gasoline are near the record levels of a year ago, when the United States was about to go to war with Iraq. On Friday, the benchmark crude oil leaped to more than $37 a barrel -- just short of the record high of nearly $40 a barrel set around this time last year.

High crude prices mean painfully high gasoline prices for many.

"It's killing our drivers," said Kirk Plazinich, president of Gulf Coast Hot Shot Service. His delivery drivers are responsible for their car maintenance and fuel costs. Recently Plazinich has had to give some drivers cash advances against their next check to allow them to pay the higher gas prices, he said.

Houston Yellow Cab driver Eddie Mustafa said the rising gasoline prices hit him where it hurts -- in the wallet. He estimates drivers have to make $120 before they start to make money for themselves, because they have to pay the car lease, plus the price of gasoline. Lately he's been looking hard for the lowest-priced fuel.

"It makes for a little longer day," he said. "But a man's got to do what a man's got to do."

They share a problem faced by some of the biggest businesses struggling to pass on the rising cost of energy.

Houston-based Continental Airlines says if the price of oil stays this high, it could eat up much of the $900 million in savings realized from cuts it made in the past year, including 1,200 job cuts.

The reason, according to Continental, is that its fuel expense goes up $35 million for every $1 jump in crude oil.

Higher prices for energy such as diesel fuel and fertilizer made from natural gas have hit agriculture "really hard," said American Farm Bureau Federation president Bob Stallman, who is a rice farmer and cattle raiser from the Columbus area.

On another front, the U.S. chemical industry says it just can't be competitive when it is absorbing the highest prices in the world for natural gas.

The industry, which is the nation's largest industrial gas consumer, uses gas to power plants and as a raw material for petrochemicals, such as polyethylene. Chemical plants, which proliferate on the Gulf Coast in Texas and Louisiana, have struggled to raise prices and cut costs, with 4,000 jobs lost in this area since 2000, according to an industry study.

Lyondell Chemical spent an extra $1 billion on fuel and feedstock last year, an official said. It was able to raise prices on its products but still lost more than $300 million last year.

In contrast, chemical plants in other countries primarily rely on petroleum, which hasn't gone up in price as much as natural gas. Until about a year ago, the United States had the advantage. Now the edge has shifted to Europe, Asia and cheap-gas areas like the Middle East.

What's going on? Oil analysts at Deutsche Bank described why oil prices are so high and could go up even more:

·World oil demand is far higher than expected due to economic growth, with particularly rapid expansion in consumption in China.

·OPEC has limited its output to keep prices high. Oil ministers say they need to make up for the lost buying power of the weak dollar -- the universal currency for the oil trade.

·Continued low exports from Iraq, and political instability in Venezuela, raise fears of short supplies.

"High oil prices look likely for at least another two years," Deutsche Bank has stated.

Guy F. Caruso, head of the Energy Information Administration, testified before Congress last week that there was a "good possibility" retail gasoline prices will set a new record, which is only a few pennies away, by the end of March.

The federal agency has warned that even with refineries running flat out this summer, the supply system will be stretched. There's the possibility of shortages in parts of the country supplied by a limited number of refineries. A breakdown in a single refinery in these regions could significantly cut supplies. And new rules banning the fuel additive MTBE in New York could also complicate the fuel situation.

In the United States, a "typical" household with two vehicles driven about 11,000 miles per year will pay $1,700 for gasoline this year, according to the Energy Information Administration. That's about where it was last year, but $200 more than in 2002.

That's likely low for many Texans, where people tend to drive more and in larger vehicles. Take David Jones, who commutes 168 miles daily from Hallettsville to Katy and back.

"My gas bill is surely between $400 and $500 a month," said Jones, a draftsman for Optimized Process Designs in Katy. He bought a diesel-powered Ford truck several years ago, shortly after he and his wife moved to Hallettsville, her hometown.

"As soon as I bought (the truck), diesel went through the roof," said Jones, who had traded in a much smaller pickup and says he won't buy a diesel pickup again.

Airlines are also looking to cut their fuel bills, but options are limited.

Carriers around the world have raised fares where possible to cover stubbornly high fuel costs. Continental has a fuel surcharge in place for cargo shipments. But its recent efforts to add a surcharge on passenger tickets were blocked when other carriers didn't go along.

One of its toughest competitors is Southwest Airlines, which is using the financial markets to blunt the impact of higher fuel prices. The carrier used a trading strategy called hedging, which in effect capped the price it's paying for much of its fuel this year and next.

Freight shippers like Houston-based EGL say they aren't hurting because they can pass the costs on.

"A lot of the airlines implement fuel surcharges when there are spikes, and a lot of trucking companies do the same," said Elijio Serrano, chief financial officer at EGL. "When they pass on higher fuel costs to us, we renegotiate contracts with our customers either in form of a fuel surcharge or renegotiated rates.

"Clearly, our customers see that impact because we pass it on, and I'm sure they pass it on to customers," Serrano said.

Companies ranging from UPS to Waste Management have limited their pain by increasing their charges.

In 2000, when Maury Myers arrived as chief executive at Houston-based Waste Management, fuel prices were spiking. The former head of Yellow Corp. trucking quickly put in a fuel surcharge and like UPS has installed a sophisticated program to constantly seek ways to run its routes more efficiently.

"Through the fuel surcharge, we are able to recoup around 60 percent of our increased fuel costs," said Waste Management spokeswoman Heather L. Browne.